Active clinical trials for "Atherosclerosis"

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), including heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, and stroke, is most commonly caused by atherosclerosis, or a hardening of the arteries. Traditional risk factors for CVD include age, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking. Although these established risk factors can be helpful in determining people at risk for developing CVD, the addition of novel gene markers for subclinical, or suspected, atherosclerosis (SA) may enhance CVD risk prediction and understanding of disease mechanisms. This study will compare specific genes of white blood cells in people with significant SA versus people without SA to improve identification of those at risk for developing CVD and to better understand the biological basis of SA.

A cholesterol/lipid profile screening project of high risk patients with hyperlipidaemia (secondary prevention) who already receive cholesterol-lowering therapy. Lipid profile and rate of patients who are treated to target (which is <100mg/dl for patients with high risk and <70mg/dl for patients at very high risk) are screened (hospital-based specialists). The doctors therapy decisions after the screening and possible reasons for these decisions will be documented. Our aim is to evaluate dosing habits, to evaluate how many patients are treated to their LDL-C target and to underline the importance of treating patients to their cholesterol targets.

The purpose of this study is to utilize high-resolution CMR carotid imaging for the characterization of carotid wall volumes and plaque content in patients with clinical significant carotid atherosclerosis. Patients who are scheduled to undergo an imaging procedure will be recruited from the cath lab. Upon enrollment, blood samples conventional and genetic profiling will be collected. For patients undergoing a carotid endarterectomy, tissue from the carotid vessel will be collected during their procedure. Comparison of the MR images with tissue and/or blood samples will be made. Length of time in the study will be approximately 1 day. There will be no study-related patient follow-up.

Adult patients with hypopituitarism under adequate conventional hormone replacement therapy have reduced life expectancy due to excess vascular events (1-4). Deficiency in GH secretion (GHD) is likely to play a major role in determining the excess mortality, since it is associated with lipid abnormalities, visceral adiposity, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, hypertension, cardiac abnormalities and increased intima-media thickness (IMT) at major arteries (5). Beneficial effects of growth hormone (GH) replacement on cardiovascular risk factors have been demonstrated in several studies of hypopituitary GHD patients (5). GH replacement improves body composition and lipid profile (5): it is accepted that management of dyslipidaemia is crucial in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease and part of the excess vascular risk associated with hypopituitarism is likely to be due to dyslipidaemia (6). A meta-analysis of blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trials with low doses and long-duration GH treatment showed that GH replacement has beneficial effects on cardiovascular risk by improving lean and fat body mass, total and LDL cholesterol levels, and diastolic blood pressure (7). Besides, GH replacement also induces improvement in cardiovascular markers (8), and cardiac performance (9). In small cohorts of GHD adults, beneficial effects of GH replacement for 6-24 mos have also been reported on surrogate parameters of atherosclerosis, such as intima-media thickness (IMT) at major arteries (10-13), while 6 months of GH deprivation is associated with an impairment of the cardiovascular risk profile (12). In a consistent series of men and women with hypopituitarism we reported, however, that two years of GH replacement is not adequate to normalize IMT levels at common carotid arteries (13). To give further insights on the likelihood of reversal of early atherosclerosis in severe GHD patients after prolonged GH replacement, we designed this 5-yr prospective, controlled study. Only men aged ≤50 yrs and with severe GHD were enrolled to avoid gender and aging interference (13). Main outcome measure was IMT at common carotid arteries; secondary measure was prevalence of insulin-resistance syndrome according with the American College of Endocrinology (14).

To establish normal values by age, race, and gender of novel markers of risk in healthy subjects necessary to predict precise risk of cardiovascular disease in an individual

Recent studies have shown that HIV infected individuals have an increased risk of developing heart disease, but the reason for this is not fully understood. This study will examine ultrasound test results of blood vessels and laboratory data of HIV infected and HIV uninfected women to examine the link between heart disease and HIV infection.

Study Objective: 1. To evaluate whether combined therapy with folic acid 2.5 mg/day, vitamin B6 50 mg/day and vitamin B12 1000 micrograms/day vs placebo reduces the rate of atherosclerosis progression, as evaluated by quantitative B-mode carotid ultrasound (US).

To conduct genetic studies of the metabolic syndrome characterized by very low levels of high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), hypertriglyceridemia, and obesity.

To conduct a multicenter study of the relationship between insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors in a tri-ethnic (African-American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white) population aged 40 to 69 years at baseline. Also, to identify the genetic determinants of insulin resistance and visceral adiposity.

To investigate the genetics and epidemiology of fasting and postprandial lipid, lipoprotein, and apolipoprotein levels.